A TRY TO KNOW YOU A TINY BIT

A series of letterpress prints inspired by the geometric
patterns and meticulous technique of woven textiles.

Initially inspired by the visual elements of the textiles—color, design, symbol-stories—the project followed these strands to reflect on weaving as an art and a technology largely developed and kept alive by women’s hands. It is math and color theory, innovation and intuition, muscle memory. It is the long way. An old way. A call for patience and meticulousness.

While much of the fabric in our daily lives is now woven by machine, what else enters an object being shaped by human hands with the generosity of time?

Printed on a Vandercook Universal I Printing Press, these letterpress prints were created using a long way: first, by scouring a type collection for text ornaments and planning a pattern on graph paper; then, hand-setting a quarter of the symmetrical design (45 individual pieces of type, plus spacing); and finally, running each cardstock through the press four to twelve times depending on the number of different colors, rotating on each side to achieve the full pattern of 180 impressions.